Magic yourself out of this one, Charlie Weasley
by Rita Arabella Black
Summary: A continuation of my last CW story, The New Dragon, several months have passed and Charlie is rescued by his brothers George and Bill and taken to St Mungo's to recover. It's been a long time since I've written anything, so please be kind and let me know what ya'll think. Need concrit and hope that I should continue writing.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: Yes, Charlie's back. I couldn't just leave him in a cave in Mexico, now could I? Based on characters created by J K Rowling. I haven't written anything in a long time, so forgive the lousy writing. I'm hoping to get my mojo back.-Rita**

 _Magic yourself out of this one, Charlie Weasley_.

The words repeated in his head over and over. Where was he? _Who_ was he, for that matter?

Slowly, he reached his hand out and felt his head. It was bandaged. It felt odd. He didn't recognize the material. Hell, he didn't even recognize his head. He tried to open his eyes, but they seemed to be swelled shut.

He tried to remember something; _anything_ , but all he remembered was a bright light and then nothingness.

Maybe I'm dead, he thought. That would explain the bright light. But his head hurt too much for him to be dead. And he smelled something; not Sulphur _nor_ roses, but rather an antiseptic odour. He couldn't remember the smell but it seemed _familiar. And how in the hell did he know what Sulphur or roses smelt like?_

"Charlie?" He heard a voice close to his face. He tried to reach out and touch it, but thinking it was a hallucination, he turned his head away.

"He's awake!" another voice chimed in.

"Where am I?" he choked.

"St. Mungo's, of course," a female voice said.

"Of course. What the hell is that?"

"St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies. Oh, Charlie." There was a sobbing sound. It was the female. She sounded old; not really old, just older, not like a kid. Maybe it was someone close to him.

"Mum?" he asked, guessing.

There was that sobbing noise again.

"I knew it! I knew he'd remember!"

"What do you remember, son?" It was a male voice this time. His dad, maybe?

He sighed. The light; the bright light that sent him flying back into a rock wall. There was someone with him. Who? Damn!

"Why can't I see?" he demanded. "What happened to me?"

"You should be able to see perfectly well within the next couple of hours," a clearly authoritarian voice said. "We had to repair the damage to your retinas. You remember who you are?"

 _No, he didn't remember who he was_. The name Charlie rang a bell only because of the sentence that had been ringing in his head forever: _Magic yourself out of this one, Charlie Weasley._

"Sure, Charlie Weasely." Why he lied about that, he had no idea, but decided he'd figure it out later. Right now he wanted answers and he wanted to get out of where-ever-the-hell he was. He needed to find the others.

There was the collective sobbing and laughing at the same time.

"How did I get here?" he asked.

"George and Bill, of course," his "dad" said. "They flew all the way to Mexico and found you. It took them forever, but they never gave up."

"Okay. George? George who is my…"

"Your brother. You do remember him, don't you?"

 _Of course he didn't remember George. He didn't know any of them._ "Of course I remember George. Silly."

He wished he could see! If he could put a face with the voices, he may be able to remember them. He blinked his eyes a couple of time and tried to open them. It was beginning to work. The images were foggy and out of focus, but he kept blinking until the room came in focus.

"Well, that's better," he said. He looked at the crowd of people standing around him. The woman, his mum, probably and the older man. There were three younger men and a woman.

Christ! A room full of gingers. He saw his own reflection. _Aw, crap!_

"George?"

A man stepped up closer to him.

"Yes, Charlie?"

"You rescued me in Mexico?"

"That's right, Charlie."

"What the hell was I doing in Mexico?"

His mum began sobbing again.

"You were in the mountains looking for a new breed of dragon."

That was certainly not what he expected to hear. Dragon?

 _Someone was looking for dinosaur fossils. He was there to help them. Mike! Who was Mike? His friend! He and Mike were there with the others! Did they get out alive?_

"Did the others get out?"

George looked up at one of the other red-headed men who shrugged his shoulders. The man, another brother, Charlie surmised, had a huge, ugly gaping scar on his face. For some reason, the scar didn't frighten or repulse Charlie; it added something to his character of the man.

 _I know him! His name is Bill! He is my brother and he is married to the hottest chick in the world._

 _He was remembering! Yes, there was Molly and Arthur, his parents—Arthur sure was dressed strangely. He recognized his baby brother, Ron, and his sister, Ginny. Where was Fred and that other one, Percy? Oh, right, Fred died in an accident._

 _No. Fred died in the war._

"Am I a wizard?" he asked, stupidly. Everyone in the room began to laugh, cry, and talk at the same time. Charlie had finally come home.

"It's all starting to come back now. They're still there! The others. I have to go back," he said desperately. He pulled himself to a sitting position and moaned loudly at the incredible pain in his head and back.

"Take care, Charlie, you're not ready to get up yet. You've had a terrible injury."

"But I have to go back. I've got to save them. I know where they are!" Crying out in pain, Charlie fell back into his pillow, passed out from the pain.

 _To be continued…_


	2. Chapter 2

Charlie was becoming more and more frustrated with his progress. There were still huge gaps in his memory and he was beginning to question his own reality. There were vague, ghostly recollections that he didn't know if they were real or imagined. He still wasn't altogether convinced that dragons weren't part of his reality. And there were times he didn't understand the whole, 'you're a wizard, Charlie,' talk.

What confused him the most, however, was the number of people who tried to take pictures of him. He overheard the nurses talking about the press sneaking into the hospital, begging for interviews and any gossip they could bribe out of the hospital staff. He wanted to ask his family about it, but he was still playing the, "I remember everything" game. The only one who seemed to doubt him was his brother, Bill. He decided if he ever got alone with him, they would have a long talk. He sensed that Bill would be straight with him.

The problem was, his mum refused to leave his side. He couldn't even take a piss without her hovering over him.

Finally, he said, "Mum, I know you used to change my nappies, but I think I can go to the loo by myself. I'm not going to disappear."

"I know that, Charlie," she said, weepily. "I thought we'd lost you. It was bad enough with you living in America…"

"I live in America?" he asked. Why didn't he remember that? "What happened to Romania?" _Romania? What was he doing in Romania? What the hell was there? Dragons, maybe?_

"Dragons?" he said aloud.

"Of course. You moved to America to work at a dragon preserve somewhere in the Southwest. Texas," Bill said. "You worked as a dragon wrangler."

Charlie tried to let that sink in, but it made no sense to him. There were no such things as dragons. They were mythical creatures invented to scare little children. _Flying American Red Dragons. Why did that sound so familiar and what the hell did it have to do with Quidditch?_

 _How did he know about Quidditch? It certainly sounded like a made up name. It was a game. A flying game and he played it. Well, that was just crazy._

"Boo!" Charlie exclaimed suddenly and his mother jumped, startled.

"Charlie, for Merlin's sake, what is wrong with you?"

Charlie ignored her. "It wasn't just Mike," he said. "There were four of us. Mike, me, Boo, and a woman. What was her name? Oh shit! And there was another woman there. We were trying to rescue her! Oh my God, Mum! How could I have forgotten? Bill, how did you find me?"

"You were alone," he said. "No one anywhere close."

"How long was I missing?"

"Almost a year," he said. "George and I spent six months tracking you down. Wizards from the Preserve had given up and they had searched for ninety days. There was no hope."

"But what made you keep looking?" Charlie tried to understand, but he couldn't understand any of it. It seemed like yesterday that he and his team went into the mountains; he couldn't believe it had been almost a year. Where had the time gone? And what had happened to him and his friends?

"George and I just had a feeling you were alive." Bill was very quiet. "We owed it to Mum and Dad and to Ingrid to keep looking."

"Ingrid?" For one of the few times in his life, Charlie began to cry. "My daughter. Is she all right?"

Bill nodded. "She and your house elf are staying with Angelina and George. We didn't want to bring her here while you were unconscious. The kid's been through a hell of a lot."

"And Gretchen?"

Bill shook his head. "She, uh, remarried right after your divorce and didn't want to have anything to do with you."

"I don't blame her," Charlie said. At least he had his daughter. Working out the rest would take some time, but he was ready to deal with it.


End file.
